Generally, an in-vehicle display apparatus may have a plurality of switches disposed on a portion of a steering wheel that allows a driver to control in-vehicle devices and/or connected portable terminals. In-vehicle devices may include vehicle electrical components such as an audio/video or an air-conditioning device. Connected portable terminals may include mobile devices such as a cellular phone or a smart phone that are brought into a vehicle. The plurality of switches on the steering wheel may be used to input instructions and to display an output from the in-vehicle display apparatus. More specifically, a driver may execute a function of an application feature of the in-vehicle device by inputting an instruction input from the plurality of switches of the in-vehicle display apparatus. For example, the driver may use the plurality of switches to input an instruction into the in-vehicle display apparatus in order to execute a fast-forward function or a rewind function of a music track provided by a music player of an audio/visual device, or execute a cabin temperature adjustment provided by a temperature control feature of an air-conditioning device, and the like. In turn, an outputted result of the application feature may be transferred back to the in-vehicle display apparatus and the contents of the processing result may be displayed on the in-vehicle display apparatus together with vehicle information representing a vehicle state.
As such, the in-vehicle display apparatus allows the driver to operate the electrical component and/or the portable terminal while driving since the driver may simultaneously view the outputted results of the application feature that is executed by inputting a function control from the switches of the in-vehicle display apparatus, which are then displayed on the in-vehicle display apparatus together with the vehicle information. Therefore, the driver may safely and efficiently operate electrical components and/or portable terminals while driving.
Such an in-vehicle display apparatus has many “direct switches” disposed on a portion of the steering wheel, as described in a patent document D1 (i.e., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-264615). The direct switches are associated with the application features of the target electrical component or portable terminal, which may result in the same number of switches and applications. That is, the electrical component and/or the portable terminal may be a “control object device” that is controlled by an operation of the direct switches that are disposed on the steering wheel.
Providing direct switches on a portion of the steering wheel is convenient for the driver since an on-screen menu may be displayed to allow a driver to select a menu item. For example, the driver may select an icon/button of a desired application feature from among similar-appearing icons/buttons in a selection menu. However, as a result of an increased number of the available applications and functions, too many direct switches may make it difficult for the driver to quickly find the desired switch. In addition, it may be difficult to physically fit all of the direct switches on the steering wheel.
Having too many direct switches may be avoided (i) by using the switches in a shared manner among many application features that are associated with many target devices. For example, switch integration that may assign one set of up/down switches to many sets of similar function controls, such as up/down controls for both cabin temperature control and audio volume level control. Further, switch integration may provide the driver with the freedom of choice, by allowing the driver to customize on-screen menus to reduce the number of on-screen menu items which are associated with the desired application feature of the target device. That is, the number of direct switches may be reduced for the convenience of the driver.
With such an in-vehicle display apparatus, an output from a currently running application feature may preferably be set to a non-display status. As a result, the currently running application feature may be sent to a “background” when (i) the currently running application feature has not received an input operation from the driver for a predetermined period of time, or (ii) another application feature is selected and executed by the driver. In such manner, the vehicle information as well as the output contents of the newly-selected application feature may be easily recognized by the driver of the vehicle.
However, with such an in-vehicle display apparatus, if the driver would like to bring the currently running application feature from the background to the foreground in order to perform an input operation for such program, the driver must bring up the currently running application feature by performing a menu item selection operation. That is, the driver can bring the application feature to the foreground only after selecting one or more of the on-screen menu items corresponding to the background application feature, which may be cumbersome for the driver of the vehicle.